To Carry a Tune
by kinosternon
Summary: A handful of collected scenes. Singing is serious business; Shion knows he doesn't understand, but after Nezumi opens up to him in a moment of weakness, he decides to try. T for swearing, just to be on the safe side. Can be read as pre-slash or gen.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I stumbled across two chapters of this recently; I wrote them a little more than a year ago, then promptly forgot about them. But they stand on their own, so I figured why not?**

* * *

A long, hacking cough echoed through the small room. Shion, on the couch to keep him safely out of range of the grumpy occupant of the bed, turned over and watched as Nezumi's body convulsed in time with the sound.

"Nezumi..." he whispered, quietly enough that he figured the other couldn't hear. He wanted to ask him if he was all right, but thought he might wake him up––and a sick Nezumi, as he had already figured out, was a very unhappy one.

This knowledge made him twitch when he heard his name from across the room. "Shion." Nezumi's voice was a rasp without any of its usual musical lightness.

"Yes?" Shion asked quietly.

"I'm going to lose my voice at this rate." The words were flat, and Shion could take nothing from them except the fact they contained.

"Really...?" he asked tentatively. He didn't know what Nezumi was getting at, but knew that asking him directly would only irritate him further.

"Yeah." Nezumi turned over restlessly, one arm thrown over his head as he regarded the low ceiling. "I hope I'll be able to sing. There's rehearsals coming up for a play."

"You don't sing in the plays, do you?"

"No, but it's helpful to have a strong range for acting."

"I see." Shion looked at the ceiling himself, and was almost drifting off when he heard Nezumi's rasp of a voice again, barely audible even in the still autumn night.

"I hope I don't lose it."

"Even if you do, I'm sure it will come back..." Shion began softly, but was cut off when Nezumi threw his arm into the air with a hoarse cry and curled into a ball on his side with his back to him.

"No," he said angrily, "You don't understand. I _hate_ not being able to sing. It's like my soul has been taken away."

"Nezumi..." Shion found himself gathering his spare blanket around himself, gently moving the mice out of his way, and getting up to go perch on the end of the bed. "Your voice will come back."

"What if it doesn't?" Nezumi asked quietly. What Shion could see of the side of his face was twisted up as though Nezumi was in pain, and when Shion reached a diplomatic hand down to brush away his bangs, he felt wetness at the tips of them.

"You have a fever," Shion said quietly. "It's making you believe things that won't happen. Trust me, Nezumi. Your voice won't go away."

Nezumi turned bleary, defiant eyes on him. "How do you know?"

"I know a lot more about medicine than you," Shion said firmly, running his hand again through Nezumi's bangs and over his head in a soothing motion. "Do you also have a headache?"

"Mm." Nezumi hesitated for a moment before curling more tightly into himself again, and when Shion brought his hand back to his head anyway he felt him relax slightly under his fingers. "You don't know much about singing, though," he pointed out.

"I know I've heard you yell before, and that hasn't hurt your voice," Shion said. "As long as you take it easy, and try not to cough so much, I don't see a seasonal cold like this doing your vocal cords any more damage than that."

"Hmph."

There was a long silence during which Shion maintained his tentative petting of Nezumi's head and Nezumi remained unresponsive, caught between grumpiness and perhaps (Shion thought) enjoyment of the sensation.

"Do you want me to stay here tonight?" he asked quietly.

"Do what you want," Nezumi answered brusquely. "You might get sick, though. And I kick when I sleep restlessly."

"I think I'll take my chances," Shion said lightly. "I'm probably going to get sick anyway from being around you; whether I sleep next to you for one night probably won't change that. And you kick sometimes already, anyway."

Nezumi grumbled something incoherent at that, but by the time Shion had retrieved his pillow the other boy was scooted up against the wall with half of the blanket available for Shion's use.

Smiling, Shion spread his own blanket atop the other and crawled under the blankets, turning until he could feel the warmth of Nezumi's body against his back.

* * *

"I'm back!" Nezumi called as he strode through the door.

Shion, off to one side at the stove, looked up and smiled at him. "Welcome back. Today was the first day of practices, right? How was your voice?"

"It was fine," Nezumi said, shrugging.

"See?" Shion said pleasantly. "I told you there would be nothing to worry about." His tone wasn't even chiding––just happy for him. Nezumi didn't think he'd ever understand how Shion did that.

"Hah," Nezumi said, retaliating anyway. "I wouldn't trust the knowledge of a half-bit medical student when it comes to singing. The two disciplines are entirely separate."

"I don't see why," Shion argued. "Singing is the vibration of the vocal cords set to specific frequencies, right? Biology and physics together can account for that."

"Sure, but tell a med student to sing and they're worthless without training." Nezumi finished hanging up his superfiber scarf on the wall and then turned to Shion again. What he said next came out on an absolute whim: "Want to try?"

On a normal day, Nezumi thought, he wouldn't have any tolerance for this at all. On a normal day, even the thought of being forced to listened to untrained adolescent squawking would have him running away as fast as his feet could carry him. But he could feel a reckless energy inside him that said that yes, he could do this today. Wanted to, even. So why not give it a try?

"I..." Shion was looking at him with doubt in his eyes. For a moment, Nezumi's traitorous brain provided him the hint of Shion's light, earthy baritone settled into a singing voice. That settled it.

"Let's teach you to sing." In four steps, Nezumi was across their small room and sitting down at the piano. "Since you're a beginner, we'll start by trying to find your range. Say 'mm' for me."

"What?"

"'Mm.' Like you're agreeing."

"'Mm,'" Shion said, obviously confused, and Nezumi tried to take from the unmelodious grunt a pitch that might represent a comfortable range for him. He plunked a few notes, humming under his breath, before he found the right one.

"There. Now, I want you to match this note. Like this: Aaaaaah." It was always a little strange, he reflected, that first moment of matching his voice to an instrument with so different a tone. After that, though, keeping the note wasn't difficult.

It seemed the same wasn't true of Shion, however. Shion's voice wavered and wobbled and cracked in a way that had Nezumi's hand to his forehead in disgust before he even realized what he was doing.

"Stop," he commanded. "Wait a moment. You're way too wound up."

"Wound...?" Shion asked, confused and slightly offended. "I'm not..."

"Yes, you––oh. You're not breathing from your stomach," Nezumi realized. "It's your shoulders."

"What?" Shion asked, looking confused now.

"Here." Nezumi walked over to him, trying to remember ways that he'd learned about breathing as a child. It had been a long time, and his lessons had all been piecemeal... "Lie down."

"Wha––?"

"The easiest way to show you what I'm talking about is to lie down, so just do it."

Shion obeyed, dubiously, and Nezumi twisted him so that he was lying on his back with his arms relaxed at his sides. "Good," he said. "Now, I want you to breathe."

Shion raised an eyebrow at him and took a breath, but Nezumi made a face and pushed down on his shoulders. "Not like that, dumbass! With your stomach."

"Nezumi, I don't understand," Shion admitted. His tone was still mild, but Nezumi could tell that he was starting to get frustrated.

"...Here." Kneeling beside Shion, Nezumi put a hand on Shion's stomach. "Make my hand rise."

It took a moment for Shion to understand, but then his eyes widened and he complied. Immediately, Nezumi felt under his hands the kind of confident, deep-belly breath that proper singing form required.

"Good," he said. "Now, lower it by exhaling again..."

* * *

It took a while for Shion to act at all confident in his voice––much longer than it took him to be confident in most of the new things Nezumi had seen him try. He stuck with exhorting Shion to relax at first, helping him settle into a range that he had never bothered exploring before as he led Shion through scales. He taught Shion the rudiments of musical theory as well, mainly because Shion excelled naturally at them and it seemed like only a kindness to encourage him given the way he was struggling with the actual singing part.

Only because he remembered the discomfort and difficulty that accompanied his voice changing several years ago was Nezumi able to even begin to understand why Shion was having so much trouble. Even as it was, though, he still didn't really get it. Shion was like a newborn foal with a body it could barely control––all awkward edges and wobbly bridges between notes, and Nezumi didn't understand how someone whose voice carried so much natural weight and conviction could fail so consistently and spectacularly as soon as a melody became involved.

Still, though, he reasoned with himself, there was no reason to give up hope just yet. Shion was improving, he was sure, even if Nezumi's fine-tuned ear still frequently cringed to listen to him. All he had to do was continue to practice, and Nezumi was sure he'd get to hear something incalculably precious: Shion, singing with all of his heart and soul and skill behind it. There was a part of him that whispered, malicious, that there was precious little soul to add as support, but Shion was emotional enough the rest of the time that he thought it would at least come through in music as childish enthusiasm. And even that, Nezumi knew, would be more than worth all the trouble, if only he could get there.

* * *

 **A/N: There's one more chapter to this at the moment, which I'll post when I've gotten around to looking it over. If anyone has any ideas about how to carry the story further, though––or to improve what I already have––I'd be interested to hear them. I enjoy these two dorks. ;)**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

Nezumi returned home perhaps a month later to hear a strange voice echoing from inside the apartment. He froze, hand straying to his knife, but months of living with Shion had taught him the danger of responding immediately to something that might not be a threat. So he strained his ears and listened.

It only took him a moment to recognize the cadences of music—there was a person singing inside. They were a light, midrange baritone from the sound of it. It came across more as speaking than as singing, Nezumi thought critically, but at least the pitch control was decent, a quality that was often lacking in lower-range singers.

It couldn't be Rikiga, he mused, and the only other person who knew where he lived and could possibly sing in that range was Inukashi—which was a stretch when it came to both range and style. Inukashi was more likely to howl than sing, after all.

Which meant...

Nezumi frowned to himself, wondering what to think about this, and then came to the door and turned the knob, being as loud about it as possible. Inside, he heard the singing immediately cut off, being replaced by the distant, faint clatter of dishware.

"Nezumi! You're home early," Shion exclaimed once Nezumi had made his way inside. He sounded surprised, and, Nezumi noted, slightly less happy than he would have normally.

"Yep. What's with that guilty look?" he asked, giving Shion a once-over. Shion was definitely blushing.

"N-nothing! I was just getting dinner ready. I don't know what you're talking about."

When ill-prepared, it seemed he was just as poor a liar as usual. Nezumi didn't even bother pretending to be fooled. "You've been practicing your singing?"

"Some." Shion turned away, fetching down their bowls from the top shelf. Nezumi was pretty sure it was an excuse not to look at him. "I figured you wouldn't want to be around to hear me doing it."

Nezumi chuckled. "You're not wrong." He was still curious about how Shion's voice might or might not turn out, but that didn't mean that if he'd heard Shion practicing earlier, he wouldn't have beat it out of the house to avoid having to listen to amateur singing. They both knew he was a professional who made no apologies for his elitism. "I'm not going to get mad at you for catching you at it, though," he admitted. "As long as your singing when you _do_ know I'm around is limited to showers only."

"Am I really that bad?" Shion asked quietly.

"Are you letting your feelings get hurt again?" Nezumi parried. "You know I can't stand amateur singing. It's worse when it's someone like you, who I have to live with."

"I suppose, though I don't really understand." Shion had that quiet but stubborn look on his face that meant he was trying to fence in his frustration with patience. Nezumi groaned.

"Look, how would you like it if I wandered all over the house doing...oh, I don't know, bad science or something?"

"Bad science?" Shion's mouth quirked, then smoothed into seriousness. "I don't really know what you mean. But if there was something you needed to work on, I'd help you."

It was the truth, and Nezumi knew it, but that didn't make it sound any less accusatory. "Well, we can't all be patient princes like you, your majesty," he said. "Singing's difficult enough to do correctly when you're a professional, and practice can be annoying to listen to. You don't catch me singing all over the place."

"No," Shion admitted, and Nezumi was sure their argument was over. He had that quiet look on his face that said he'd stumbled over something internal and was trying to work it out before speaking again.

"But..."

Then again, Shion was always surprising him.

"...that's because when you sing, it's special."

Nezumi, who was on his way to pick out a book from the shelf across from Shion, turned around, raising an eyebrow. Inwardly, he was already stealing himself for the awkward and painful conversation he could feel coming.

"I mean, you recite all the time. It can be pretty embarrassing...but you're really good at it, So I don't mind." Shion was smiling faintly now, apparently secure in saying stupid things, as usual. "But you don't sing that much because when you do, it's special, right? Like it's sacred, or something."

Nezumi shrugged. He returned with his book to the couch and angled himself so that he was pointedly facing away from Shion as he opened it. "Not really," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. Hopefully Shion would let the subject drop now, he thought, before it could go further.

"What is it, then?" Shion asked. "I mean, singing's clearly very important to you, but around the house you hardly ever sing, even though you play-act all the time."

The problem with Shion, Nezumi thought bitterly, is that he refused to pay any attention to signals. "That's because my voice isn't for happy occasions," he said tightly. He hadn't thought about it that way before, and hated that he was forced to realize it now. "Acting's fun, but singing isn't for around the house."

"What if you sang lighthearted songs?" Shion asked. "What is it about singing?"

 _Sometimes, I really want to kill him,_ Nezumi thought, but repressed the impulse. Just because Shion tended to make him feel backed into a corner, it didn't make him an actual threat; that was a lesson Nezumi was still struggling to learn. "Singing's different," he said. He'd probably repeated that by now. He didn't care.

Shion was starting to learn, though, because he just said, "Okay," and didn't follow when Nezumi left the room to sulk on the couch for a while.

* * *

Perhaps a week after their conversation, Nezumi first started to hear snatches of Shion's humming around the house. Usually not when he was in sight—he'd stop if Nezumi came into his line of vision, but sometimes he'd begin humming to himself behind the bookcase, or in the kitchen, or while tugging the collar of his stupid shirt out of his stupid sweater in the mirror. (Nezumi wasn't really a morning person.)

But humming wasn't as bad as normal singing, and Nezumi kept his glaring to a minimum as long as Shion didn't keep it up too long and stayed in tune.

In return—and he wasn't sure whether it was was more as a form of revenge, or as penance—he took up playing the piano. Not very often, and never for long, but he'd pick songs that were meant to accompany singing and plunk his way through them. He got better at it, slowly, and Shion seemed to have learned enough not to say anything about it. He was pretty sure he saw Shion watching him intently from halfway behind the bookcase once or twice, but by the time he shuffled the music away and turned around, Shion always had his nose firmly in a book. He didn't try to hide his faint smile though, which banished any last vestiges of doubt that he might be irritated by Nezumi's playing.

If Shion tried out the piano for himself, he did it while Nezumi definitely wasn't around. He didn't even ask where the music theory book that eventually appeared in the house had come from.

Maybe he was learning in more ways than one, Nezumi reflected. It would be funny but fitting if music was the thing that finally taught Shion that not everything was meant to be said aloud in literal words.

* * *

 **A/N: If the piano bit seems a bit rushed, it's because it occurred to me sort of out of the blue when I was looking for a way to end the chapter. It feels a little weird, still, but I'm going to count it as an improvement.**

 **I'm pretty much out of ideas for these two for now, so I'm marking this story as complete, but ideas for other musical-type things to inflict on these two are welcome.**


End file.
